Tuesday, January 09, 2007

No Substitute for Victory

History Professor John Lewis looks back on a previous American response to a sneak attack. He describes how the American president waged war against the enemies of America until they surrendered unconditionally. He then looks at the modern "war on terror" and wonders how the American will to survive as a free nation became so degraded in such a short time.

This is Islamic Totalitarianism—State Islam—rule by Islamic Law—and it is on the rise. While this cleric plots an Islamic State, people from countries where children are taught that Jews are born of pigs and monkeys, and that Israel is “occupied territory” and fair game for attack, rail against so-called anti-Muslim “prejudice.” Inside America, leaders of hostile countries give speeches to build “bridges of understanding” while building nuclear bombs overseas.9 Adherents of Islam claim to be victims of persecution, assertions they make on national television, from pulpits, and in tenured university positions.

Meanwhile, a state of siege is being more deeply entrenched inside America every day. We are losing the war by institutionalizing the loss of our freedoms, searching the sneakers of senior citizens in wheelchairs in order to avoid confronting bellicose dictatorships overseas. In the minds of many people, the Bush administration’s allegedly “offensive” strategy has discredited the very idea of genuinely offensive war for American self-interest, which it pledged to fight, and then betrayed to its core. Our soldiers come home maimed or dead, and military offense, rather than timidity, takes the blame. To compensate for our weakness overseas, we are building electric fences and security barriers to keep the world out, accepting the medieval ideal of walled towns under constant threat of attack, rather than destroying the source of such threats.

In short, the second, pragmatic, altruistic approach has failed. In the five years since 9/11, the motivations behind the Islamic attacks have not been suppressed—and this is the real failure of these policies. The number of particular attacks is not the measure of success or failure. The Islamic Totalitarians remain physically intact, spiritually committed, and politically empowered. The Islamic Totalitarian movement remains—distributed, without the strong central command Al Qaeda once had, but still energized—and it appears like hidden gushers, the jihad bursting forth in seemingly random places by internal pressure from an underground stream. Our acceptance of pragmatism, the policy of short-range trial and error that rejects principles on principle—and altruism, the morality of self-sacrifice—left no other result possible.

In other words, there is only one way to defeat this despicable and primitive enemy: total war. Total war does not mean using every weapon in the arsenal. It means using what works. Limiting injury to non-combatants is a high priority, but not the greatest priority. The greatest priority is preservation of western values of personal freedom in the social, political, and economic spheres. Whatever threatens these freedoms becomes the enemy--whether that is Wahabi fanaticism, Hizbollah, Iranian nuclear terrorism, or any government whatsoever.

Anything else is appeasement and surrender to religious totalitarianism and fascism. Although post-modernist university professors and journalists subscribe overwhelmingly to the appeasement philosophy of survival, their slovenly decadence is not something an intelligent person would imitate. Rationality dictates that an enemy that has sworn to destroy your culture should himself be destroyed. There is no substitute for victory--clear and overwhelming victory.